Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict that contested the people of Mexico against their colonial Spanish authorities in mainland Vice-royalty of New Spain in the early 1800's. Background As a colony, Mexico was part of the much larger Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, the southwestern United States as well as Florida, and the Philippines. The population of New Spain was divided into four main groups or classes. The most powerful group was the the Peninsulares '''or Spaniards, people born in Spain and sent across the Atlantic to rule the colony. The second group, called '''Creoles, were those of Spanish background born in Mexico who had little say in government. The third group, the Mestizos (Mixed), were people who had some Spanish ancestors and some Indian ancestors, but were belittled too much by higher ranking population for their darker skin color. The poorest, most marginalized group in New Spain was the Indians, descendants of pre-Columbian peoples, and Africans who were nothing more than farmers and laborers with no political power to show. In the aftermath of the Mutiny of Aranjuez, Spanish King Charles IV was ousted from his own throne by disgruntled Spanish citizens in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. Now King of Spain, Ferdinand along with his father turned to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who under false pretenses that he could help solve their disputes, invited both of them to Bayonne, France. However, Napoleon only succeeded in pressuring them both to cede the throne of Spain to the emperor's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, dissolving the Bourbon Dynasty from Spain. As expected, the Spanish people resented the designation and challenged the French's control over Spain with the creation of juntas (councils) in parts of Spain to fill in for the fallen monarchy and to lead the struggle that would become the Peninsula War against the French Empire. The move to have regional juntas formed to oversee provincial juntas caused great confusion for juntas did not recognize the presumptuous claim of others to represent the monarchy as a whole. Most Spanish Americans saw no reason to recognize a rump government that was under the threat of capture by the French at any moment, and began to work for the creation of local juntas to preserve the region’s independence from the French. The upheavals in Spain reached Mexico and divided the colony by loyalty to the crown or the viceroy. The peninsulares succeeded in banishing the existing Viceroy to Spain and installing a retired Spanish general, Pedro Garibay, on the post. The uncertain government, combined with the heavy taxes levied upon the people of Mexico, resulted in nationwide unrest and, ultimately, the war of Independence. Phase One In 1803, aged 50, a Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, arrived in Dolores accompanied by his family that included a younger brother, a cousin, two half sisters, as well as María and their two children. He obtained this parish in spite of his hearing before the Inquisition, which did not stop his secular practices. After Hidalgo settled in Dolores, he turned over most of the clerical duties to one of his vicars, Fr. Francisco Iglesias, and devoted himself almost exclusively to commerce, intellectual pursuits and humanitarian activity. His goal was to make the Indians and mestizos more self-reliant and less dependent on Spanish economic policies. However, these activities violated policies designed to protect agriculture and industry in Spain, and Hidalgo was ordered to stop them. These policies as well as exploitation of mixed race castas fostered resentment in Hidalgo of the Peninsular-born Spaniards in Mexico. In addition to restricting economic activities in Mexico, Spanish mercantile practices caused misery for the native peoples. A drought in 1807–1808 caused a famine in the Dolores area, and, rather than releasing stored grain to market, Spanish merchants chose instead to block its release, speculating on yet higher prices. Hidalgo lobbied against these practices. In 1808, with the invasion of Spain by the Napoleonic troops and the subsequent deposition of the Spanish monarch Charles IV and his son Ferdinand VII, a convulsive period began in Spain and America. Then emerged numerous groups of intellectuals who discussed the sovereignty and forms of government of the colonies. In 1809 he joined a secret society formed in Valladolid whose purpose was to assemble a congress, to govern New Spain in the name of King Ferdinand VII , Napoleon's prisoner and, where appropriate, obtain the independence of the country. Miguel Domínguez, the corregidor of Querétaro, had promoted the formation of an American congress and was in favor of an autonomous government. In 1810 several people gathered around him who conspired against the viceregal authority under the pretext of a literary gathering. In the Querétaro meetings, important creoles participated, among them the corregidor himself and his wife, Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez ; Ignacio Allende, an officer and small landowner; and Juan Aldama , also an officer. Miguel Hidalgo arrived in Queretaro invited by Allende at the beginning of September 1810. At first it was decided to start the uprising in December 1810 in the town of San Juan de los Lagos , which would be headed by Allende and Aldama. The conspirators secretly ordered weapons and spoke to influential Creole military officers, bringing many over to their cause. But in September 10, 1810, Juan Aldama was in San Miguel when he heard news that the conspiracy of Querétaro was discovered by a denunciation of Captain Joaquín Arias de Celaya . On September 13 there was another complaint, in which the brothers Emeterio and Epigmenio González , as well as the corregidor Miguel Domínguez, were implicated as conspirators., From queretaro. This one noticed and ordered to register the houses of the González brothers, in search of arms. Conspiracies were organized in San Miguel, Celaya, Guanajuato, San Felipe, San Luis Potosi and Mexico City. The corregidor Miguel Dominguez, forced by the authorities, ordered the arrest of the conspirators and his wife locked in his room while chasing the insurgents. The wife of the corregidor, Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez , warns Ignacio Allende sending a message to San Miguel. The corrector's envoy informed Captain Juan Aldama that the conspiracy had been discovered. He traveled to Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo) to inform Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and Ignacio Allende. Allende was in Dolores on September 15 with Father Hidalgo when they heard the bad news. They decided to start the revolution then and there as opposed to hiding. Hidalgo commanded his brother Mauricio, as well as Ignacio Allende and Mariano Abasolo, to go with a number of other armed men to make the sheriff release pro-independence prison inmates in Dolores on the night of 15 September 1810. They managed to set eighty free. Around 2:30 a.m. of 16 September 1810, Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and gathered his congregation. Flanked by Allende and Juan Aldama, Hidalgo called Mass, which was attended by about 300 people, including hacienda owners, local politicians and Spaniards. There he gave what is now known as the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores), So named because it was publicly read in the town of Dolores, the Grito called for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico, the redistribution of land and a concept that the creoles’ earlier plans had deliberately omitted: racial equality. Though a creoles himself, Hidalgo extended his call to arms to mestizos and people of indigenous descent; their significant contribution of manpower changed the tenor of the revolt. Hidalgo was met with an outpouring of support. Intellectuals, liberal priests and many poor people followed Hidalgo with a great deal of enthusiasm. However, Hidalgo's actions and the people's response, meant he would lead and not Allende. Allende had acquired military training when Mexico established a colonial militia; Hidalgo had no military training at all. The people who followed Hidalgo also had no military training, experience or equipment. Many of these people were poor who were angry after many years of hunger and oppression. Consequently, Hidalgo was the leader of undisciplined rebels. Path to Mexico City Hidalgo and Allende left Dolores with about 800 men, half of whom were on horseback. They marched through the Bajío area, through Atotonilco, San Miguel el Grande (present-day San Miguel de Allende), Chamucuero, Celaya, Salamanca, Irapuato and Silao, to Guanajuato. From Guanajuato, Hidalgo directed his troops to Valladolid, Michoacán. They remained here for a while and then decided to march towards Mexico City. From Valladolid, they marched through the State of Mexico, through the cities of Maravatio, Ixtlahuaca, Toluca coming as close to Mexico City as the Monte de las Cruces, between the Valley of Toluca and the Valley of Mexico. One of the first stops was at the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Atotonilco, where Hidalgo affixed an image of the Virgin to a lance to adopt it as his banner. He inscribed the following slogans to his troops’ flags: "Long live religion! Long live our most Holy Mother of Guadalupe! Long live America and death to bad government!" For the insurgents as a whole, the Virgin represented an intense and highly localized religious sensibility, invoked more to identify allies rather than create ideological alliances or a sense of nationalism. The vicissitudes of the following weeks can be described as vertiginous. On September 21, with a large, undisciplined and turbulent battalion, Miguel Hidalgo occupied the city of Celaya, where grades were distributed among the leaders of the insurrection: the honor of being a lieutenant general fell to Ignacio Allende; the priest Miguel Hidalgo was proclaimed without discussion captain general. On 28 September 1810, Hidalgo arrived at the city of Guanajuato with rebels, who were, for the most part, armed with sticks, stones, and machetes. The town's Spanish and Creole populations took refuge in the heavily fortified Alhóndiga de Granaditas granary defended by Quartermaster Antonio Riaños. The insurgents overwhelmed the defenses after two days and killed everyone inside, an estimated 400 - 600 men, women and children. Allende strongly protested these events and while Hidalgo agreed that they were heinous, he also stated that he understood the historical patterns that shaped such responses. The mass's violence as well as Hidalgo's inability or unwillingness to suppress it caused the creoles and peninsulares to ally against the insurgents out of fear. This also caused Hidalgo to lose any support from liberal creoles he might have otherwise have attained. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical authorities condemned with energy the insurgents, especially their most visible leader, whom they accused of trickster, heretic and enemy of private property, charges for which he was excommunicated. In fact, Hidalgo had asserted by then that the lands should be returned to the Indians, thereby earning their adhesion, but what he had not yet defended (and the attitude of the bishops only accelerated his decision) was the need to achieve total independence of the country. October Crusades From Guanajuato, Hidalgo set off for Valladolid on 10 October 1810 with 15,000 men. When he arrived at Acámbaro, he was promoted to generalissimo and given the title of His Most Serene Highness, with power to legislate. With his new rank he had a blue uniform with a clerical collar and red lapels meticulously embroidered with silver and gold. This uniform also included a black baldric that was also embroidered with gold. There was also a large image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in gold on his chest. Hidalgo and his forces took Valladolid with little opposition on 17 October 1810. Here, Hidalgo issued proclamations against the peninsulares, whom he accused of arrogance and despotism, as well as enslaving those in the Americas for almost 300 years. Hidalgo argued that the objective of the war was "to send the gachupines back to the motherland" because their greed and tyranny lead to the temporal and spiritual degradation of the Mexicans. Hidalgo forced the Bishop-elect of Michoacan, Manuel Abad y Queipo, to rescind the excommunication order he had circulated against him on 24 September 1810. Later, the Inquisition issued an excommunication edict on 13 October 1810 condemning Hidalgo as a seditionary, apostate, and heretic. The insurgents stayed in the city for some days preparing to march to the capital of New Spain, Mexico City. The canon of the cathedral went unarmed to meet Hidalgo and got him to promise that the atrocities of San Miguel, Celaya and Guanajuato would not be repeated in Valladolid. The canon was partially effective. Wholesale destruction of the city was not repeated. However, Hidalgo was furious when he found the cathedral locked to him. So he jailed all the Spaniards, replaced city officials with his own and looted the city treasury before marching off toward Mexico City. On 19 October, Hidalgo left Valladolid for Mexico City after taking 400,000 pesos from the cathedral to pay expenses. The Battle of Monte de las Cruces The Viceroy quickly organized a defense, sending out the Spanish general Torcuato Trujillo with 1,000 men, 400 horsemen, and 2 cannons, all that could be found on such short notice. Hidalgo and his troops left the state of Michoacán and marched through the towns of Maravatio, Ixtlahuaca, and Toluca before stopping in the forested mountain area of Monte de las Cruces. Here, insurgent forces engaged Torcuato Trujillo's royalist forces. The battle began at about 8 am on 30 October 1810 in a cold pine forest on rugged territory. The battle had three phases, corresponding to the three offensives of the insurgent army against royalist positions. The first two were rebuffed, but the insurgents managed to surround the royalists. Before the third try, Hidalgo sent emissaries to try to get the royalist to surrender but the head of the royalist army responded by killing the emissaries. This angered insurgent troops. The third offensive was successful and cleared the road for the advance to Mexico City. Hidalgo's troops forced the royalist troops to retreat, but the insurgents suffered heavy casualties for their efforts, as they had when they engaged trained royalist soldiers in Guanajuato. Beginning of the End The certain thing is that, after the victory of Monte de las Cruces, Ignacio Allende recommended that the capital be attacked, but the priest Hidalgo, ignoring the excellent advice shared by the other military leaders, did not want to advance towards Mexico City. With the burden behind what happened in Guanajuato, and to prevent his own troops from plundering the capital, or before the threat of an attack by Marshal Félix María Calleja , he ordered the withdrawal. After the retreat of the insurgents, Viceroy Francisco Javier Venegas ordered Calleja, now a brigadier in command of a cavalry division, to march from San Luis Potosí to the aid of the capital. On the march between Querétaro and Mexico City, Calleja met the insurgents in the plains of San Jerónimo Aculco, where he decimated them on the Battle of Aculco November 7, 1810. Hidalgo returned to Valladolid and from there he left for Guadalajara. Already in Guadalajara (November 22), Miguel Hidalgo issued a declaration of independence and formed a provisional government; it also decreed the abolition of slavery, the suppression of taxes paid by the natives to the Crown, and the restitution of land usurped by the haciendas. But such and such excellent administrative and tributary decrees were paperless without the help of force. Calleja then retook Guanajuato on November 25 and Guadalajara on January 21, 1811. By the end of the year Hidalgo had already lost Guanajuato and Valladolid. On January 17, 1811, Hidalgo's troops were defeated at the Battle of Puente de Calderón by a contingent of royalist soldiers under Calleja. Deposed from command by his fighting companions, Hidalgo left for Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, with the intention of reaching the United States to seek support for his cause, but was betrayed by Ignacio Elizondo and captured at the Norias de Acatita de Baján on May 21. of 1811. In Chihuahua, after being subjected to a double ecclesiastical and civil process, Hidalgo was expelled from the priesthood and condemned to death. The execution took place on the morning of July 30, 1811. The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama and Jiménez were preserved and hung from the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas of Guanajuato as a warning to those who dared follow in their footsteps.They were displayed as a warning placed in cages in the Granaditas de Guanajuato Alhóndiga. They remained there for several years. Nevertheless, there were still energies and caudillos (Leaders) to the revolution, fueled even more by the example of priest Hidalgo, whose integrity, maintained until the last moment, won the admiration even of the squad of its executors. Phase Two After Ignacio Lopez Rayon — stationed in Saltillo, Coahuila with 3,500 men and 22 cannons — heard of the capture of the insurgent leaders, he decided to flee back south on 26 March, 1811 to continue the fight. He subsequently fought the Spanish in the Battles of Puerto de Piñones, Zacatecas, El Maguey, and Zitácuaro. Following the execution of Hidalgo, José María Morelos took over leadership of the insurgency. He achieved the occupation of the cities of Oaxaca and Acapulco. In 1813, he convened the Congress of Chilpancingo to bring representatives together and, on 6 November of that year, the Congress signed the first official document of independence, known as the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America. A long period of war followed in the Siege of Cuautla. In 1815, Morelos was captured by Spanish colonial authorities, tried and executed for treason. Battles * Siege of Guanajuato * Battle of Puerto de Carroza * Battle of Valladolid * Battle of Monte de las Cruces * Battle of Zacoalco * Battle of Aculco * Battle of Guadalajara * Battle of Guanajuato * Battle of Real del Rosario * Battle of Tres Palos * Battle of Aguanueva * Battle of Urepetiro * Battle of Calderon Bridge * Battle of Puerto del Carnero * Battle of San Ignacio de Piaxtla